AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15122, 12 October 1912, Page 6

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

The scientific use of the soil is of such supreme importance to every civilised people that too much attention cannot be paid to agricultural education. It is desirable that we should have skilled engineers, competent artisans, trained electricians, and highly-organised industrial corps of every kind, but it is not only desirable, but necessary, that we should have Scientific farmers and capable stock-raisers. The country could import all kinds of manufactured goods, and can obtain from outside all varieties of specialised workers, but it can only produce wealth from the, land, and can only produce to the best advantage by means of an agrarian population versed in the methods best suited to the local soil, conditions, and climate. When we consider that the yield of a farm may be doubled or quadrupled by substituting scientific farming for rough farming, and that this increased yield will enable a corresponding doubling or quadrupling of the population which lives, in town as in country, from the work of our agriculturists, we may form an estimate of the value of agricultural education. The proposals for encouraging this education made by the special sub-committee of the Auckland Agricultural Association are, therefore, deserving of most careful consideration by both Government and public. That it will be difficult to adapt our educational system to obvious requirements may be admitted, but the country districts have a right , to special consideration, and with closer settlement, better roads, and more frequent railways, many difficulties which now seem almost insuperable will disappear. The main thing is that • education should be guided upon sound and scientific lines, so that every year may see advance in the right direction.